(bright music) - [Teacher] We are gonna get wet.

I definitely have my water shoes on today.

My toes would get soggy, wet, and muddy, and who cares, right?

- Try to catch them where the bubbles are.

- [Teacher] That's a great idea.

- [Narrator] Have you ever hunted in a pond for polywogs or frogs, or tried to scoop up a minnow?

What else lives there?

The creatures that live in a pond have special creature features that make them well suited for life in that watery world.

Do you think you could find the same creatures in a river?

Both ponds and rivers hold water.

But one glance at a pond, and you will know it's really different from a river.

What are the differences in these two watery worlds?

Let's take some measurements and find out.

- We are gonna compare this pond to a river.

We're gonna feel how warm or cold the water is.

We're gonna look at how murky the water is, what the bottom is made up of, how fast the water is moving.

Plus, we're gonna try to figure out how much oxygen is in the water.

Wow!

(bright music) - [Narrator] Ponds and rivers on this episode of "Nature WY".

- [Child] "Nature WY" is brought to you in part by the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation.

- In the word bionic or the word biology, bio means life.

So point to something that's alive.

Okay.

Point to something else that's alive.

Okay, so many things around us right now that are alive.

I see grass, I see people.

I heard a snake, I see a dragonfly.

Ooh, look at that dragonfly right there.

- [Child] I see a tree.

- Cool.

In science, if you put an A in front of something, the letter A, that means not.

Not biotic, so not living.

Now, abiotic things have never been living.

So in your brain, think of something that has never been living that's around us.

Hmm.

- Your backpack.

- My backpack, good.

What else has never been living?

- That camera.

- The camera?

I like that.

What'd you say, Addie?

- [Addie] Rocks.

- Rocks.

Yes, good.

What are we breathing right now?

- [Children] Air.

- Yes.

And specifically oxygen, right?

Oxygen has never been living.

So those are all abiotic factors in our environment.

- [Narrator] Creatures that live in one environment may have different creature features than those that live in another.

Scientists would say a creature has adapted to its environment by evolution.

Are you adapted to live in aquatic life in a pond?

- What would you say you are, Nora?

Are you terrestrial or aquatic?

- Terrestrial.

- Yeah, me too.

I like to go swimming, but I'm not so good at swimming like a fish.

And breathing underwater, I can't really quite do that.

If you were gonna go swimming, what would you need?

- Swimming suit?

- [Julie] What else could you do to make yourself... Oh yeah, goggles.

What would goggles let you do?

- [Nora] Let your eyes see.

- Oh yeah, exactly.

What about if you wanted to swim really fast?

What could you wear to make you swim even faster?

- Flippers.

- [Julie] Flippers.

When I put on flippers, I can swim so much faster.

- [Nora] And they kinda look like duck feet.

- [Julie] Yeah, they do look like duck feet.

- [Narrator] As humans, we can become aquatic for a while.

Animals like this duck or this fish are adapted to living in a pond.

What kind of abiotic factors could you measure in a pond?

First, let's test the temperature.

- Everybody get close and put your hand in the water.

So feel that.

What would you say?

Icy cold, warm like bathwater, or in between?

Yeah.

And nice enough for a swim, I would say.

- I stuffed the thermometer in and it's about, hmm, about 68 degrees, so I'm gonna write that down.

- [Narrator] How about another abiotic factor, turbidity?

- In this tube, if you look on the inside, look in there, there's a disc, and the disc is black and white.

Can you see that?

- [Child] Yep, I can see it.

- I'm gonna fill this tube with water.

Do you see that black and white disc?

- Nope.

It's all dirty.

- There's some stuff floating around in it.

- [Narrator] Scientists slowly let water drain out of the turbidity tube until they just start to see that black and white disc.

- Nora's watching, watching, watching.

And as soon as she sees black and white, she's gonna say stop.

- Stop.

- All right.

So when there's a lot of sediment in the water, it takes a really long time to be able to see that disc at the bottom.

So our reading, we're gonna mark it at 70, just so we can compare it.

- [Narrator] Substrate.

- All right.

Look at the bottom.

What is the bottom made up of?

- [Children] Algaes.

- [Emily] There's definitely some plant growth down there.

So I'm gonna write plants.

- [Narrator] Some ponds are soft and squishy on the bottom.

Others may be sandy or have stones.

Velocity.

- I'm gonna toss this out into the middle and we're gonna see if it moves.

All right.

Are we ready?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Is it moving?

- [Child] No, it's not moving.

- [Narrator] Oxygen.

- Let's see.

Does it look like there are a lot of bubbles in the water?

I am seeing some bubbles.

Are you guys seeing that?

- [Children] Yeah.

- [Emily] So I'm gonna write down a few bubbles.

These bubbles show us that there's some oxygen in this water.

- [Julie] How many patches of bubbles do you see right now?

Let's count them.

- 19 is what I see.

- 19 patches of little bubbles.

How big is each patch, do you think?

The size of a quarter?

Smaller?

- Smaller.

- Smaller than a quarter.

(kids chatting) - [Narrator] Now that you've measured the abiotic factors of a pond, explore what lives there.

You can use your hands, things from the recycling bin, or a fancy net.

In a pond, you'll discover creatures with many different body shapes, some are swimmers, many others walk along the bottom of the pond.

- Look at this.

Look at what we found.

What'd she find?

- [Child] A snail.

- [Emily] You found a snail?

- [Child] Look at all of those she found.

- [Emily] What are those?

- [Child] I found a cool creature.

- [Emily] Oh nice.

These things.

What is that?

Yes, it's a crayfish.

- [Narrator] The creatures in a river can be really different from those in a pond because it's a really different watery place to live.

- So science kids, we're gonna test all of those abiotic factors that we tested at the pond, we're gonna test them again here in the river, in the creek.

So with our turbidity, we filled it up.

And Evie, can you see it in there?

Can you see the sucky disc at the bottom?

You can see it?

Okay, so we don't even have to drain it.

So I can just pour this water back into the creek.

Perfect.

Our other test that we were doing was temperature.

So this water is just a little bit colder than the pond water just by a couple degrees.

So this is about 64-ish, 68.

So not a lot colder, but a little bit, right?

So we decided the bottom is made of rocks and sand.

Excellent work.

We pointed to fast water and bubbles.

Now, we have to do velocity.

We have to see how fast this water is moving.

This is gonna be a little bit different than the pond.

With the pond, we just tossed a pine cone out and what happened to it?

- [Child] It floated and it didn't move.

Exactly.

Floated and it didn't move.

All right.

So Taylor, I'm gonna throw it upstream.

As soon as it gets to you, you're gonna yell start.

Ready?

I'll throw it up.

Here it comes.

- [Children] Start.

- And once it gets down to Shelly.

- [Shelly] 8.13 seconds.

- Okay.

So first off, was the cone moving?

- [Children] Yes.

- Was the cone moving pretty fast?

- [Children] Yes.

- [Narrator] The abiotic non-living features of a river are very different from those of a pond, and that means the creatures that live in those two environments are different too.

Rivers can have fast water.

So river creatures are often sleek swimmers or rock clingers.

- So the last thing we need to talk about is how animals' shapes are different in this water versus the pond water.

What did you guys notice when we pick up a rock, how are these animals attached?

- Usually by suction.

- They're stuck.

They glue themselves.

Would it be easier to stay in this stream if you were glued to a rock?

What would happen if you weren't glued?

- You would wash off the rock.

- Exactly.

Wash away, just like our pine cone and our stick.

There's a caddisfly glued, sticking straight up, glued to the rock.

There's another one.

- [Narrator] Head outside to explore watery places near you.

From the warm, slow water of a pond, perfect for a slow moving water scorpion, to the cold, fast water of a river, perfect for a clinging stone fly.

For instructions on how to do this at home, go to wyomingpbs.org/naturewy.

Come along with science kids and us at Wyoming PBS to learn more about the ponds and rivers in your own piece of Wyoming.

Thanks for watching.

- [Child] "Nature WY" is brought to you in part by the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Rocky Mountain Power, supporting the growth and vitality of our community.

- [Children] Thank you Rocky Mountain Power Foundation.